Automatic doors e.g. sliding doors or revolving doors are commonly used e.g. in commercial, health care and residential applications.
A sliding door system typically comprises door panels attached to wheel carriages running in a sliding track. Due to the high number of repetitions of opening and closing and the considerable weight of the door panels, the wear on the wheels and the wheel carriage in such an application is considerable.
Therefore, metal wheels are often used in this type of applications. However, metal wheels may cause noise when running in the track. An alternative is to use plastic wheels, which are cheaper. A problem with using plastic wheels is that they need to be replaced more frequently and that the procedure of replacing the wheels is complicated and often implies readjustment of the complete door panel. Therefore, wheel replacement typically needs to be assisted by professional staff.
Different doors put different requirements on the wheels and the wheel carriage, due to e.g. varying weight. The average weight of a door panel may be about 60 kg. However, in some application door panels weighing 200-300 kg are used. This may cause problems such that the door is not sliding smoothly in the track or that the wheels are worn out very quickly.
Another problem of sliding door systems is that the height adjustment is complicated and thus often inaccurate. Height adjustment typically needs to be performed each time the door has been removed from the sliding track e.g. in connection to wheel exchange.
Hence, it is a general problem that the wheels of a sliding door system are worn out and that the existing methods for exchanging the wheel of a wheel carriage in a sliding door system are inflexible, expensive and time consuming. Therefore, finding an improved wheel carriage, which mitigates or alleviates the above-mentioned drawbacks, would be most welcome.